Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty-Two

Reke

I stare through the open door. There's a cockpit, with four hammock-chairs hanging from the ceiling. The control panel is smaller than any I have seen before, but all the buttons are lit up, proving they are fully powered. As if sensing us, the monitor illuminates with the words: Escape pod activated.

"Venn!" Nina screams, throwing her head back and cupping her hands around her mouth to help her voice carry. "Venn. Ney. Get down here now ! Now! Now!" She tries to push me inside ahead of her, but I resist, pushing Nina inside ahead of me instead. Her clawless feet slip on the floor, and she stumbles forward, catching herself on the control panel.

"I will get him," I promise, right as Ney comes sprinting into the cafeteria. She pushes past me, and for a second I think she will close the door and activate the pod, but Nina snarls at Ney to "sit down and shut the fuck up."

"We do not have time to wait," is Ney's angry shout. "The Hov are boarding."

I leap forward, keeping low to the ground. Vennkor is still in the main control room, pressing buttons on the touch screen and doing … I do not know what. He is standing right before the hatch to which the Hov have attached their Freighter. The seal between the two ships must be airtight, for the door begins to slide open.

I throw myself against it. Jamming my feet at the base of the control panel for leverage, I push with all my strength, digging my claws into the too-smooth surface to gain traction, determined to keep it closed for as long as possible.

The mechanism groans in protest.

"Venn," I growl his name, even as the door resists my attempts and slides a fraction further, far enough that I glimpse a Hov guard, his gun drawn, the blade, extending beyond the barrel, rippling with electricity.

If the door were to open any further, the Hov could fire his weapon, killing Vennkor.

I will not leave him behind, for all that he is risking all our lives and for what? "Venn!"

He blinks, looking up at me, as if he had been too engrossed to have noticed my arrival.

"Go!" I yell, and he finally runs from the cockpit. I wait only until I hear his quiet footfalls turn as he enters the cafeteria. Nina is shouting. Ney is bellowing, fear pitching her voice high.

I release the door. Not waiting to watch it slide fully open, I sprint to the cafeteria, push Venn the rest of the way into the escape pod and hit the close button, locking the door behind us.

There is a moment when nothing happens, when the four of us exist in complete silence, and then the pod detaches from the main Freighter, the momentum jerking us sideways.

"Fucking hell!" Nina grasps. Her eyes are wide. Her hands are shaking. Her face is so pale that her lips are almost white. "Bloody fucking hell!"

"Is it … did we … " For the first time, Ney is lost for words.

Vennkor picks himself off the floor where he had fallen. His horns hit the ceiling, and he almost falls again.

I look from one to the other. Is this … freedom?

The central monitor changes. It now reads: Select your destination.

"One, the Arena," Nina reads down the list of options. "Two, the closest habitable planet. Three, enter alternative coordinates."

"Is it that simple?" I do not want to believe we have really escaped if we are only going to be recaptured, and I resolutely ignore the racing beat of my heart as I look from Nina to Venn and back again, searching for a sign of the truth in their faces.

"Venn?" Nina asks, and I hear the breath catch in her throat. "Please tell me you managed to get them."

He leans forward, his hands shaking, and selects the third option, entering custom coordinates.

"Really?" Nina's voice breaks.

The monitor changes again: Coordinates accepted. Destination approved.

"Oh my God. Really, Venn? Really?!"

"Real—" Venn's answer is cut short as Nina throws herself into his arms.

So that is what he was doing. He must have had to wait until the Hov returned full power to the Freighter so they could open the doors before he could access coordinates from the database. I narrow my eyes, anger that he risked himself warring with my pleasure at seeing Nina so happy.

Happier, I think, than I have ever seen her.

Hyperspeed activated.

"Where are we going?" Ney demands.

"Home," is Nina's simple answer.

Ney's mouth drops open. "I will not be?—"

"Fuck no!" Nina hurries to correct her. "We're not going to your old home. We're going to our new one. At least, what I hope will be our new home, in deep space. We're going somewhere the Hov can't bother us ever again."

"Impossible." Ney crosses four arms. "Such a place does not exist."

"I will eat you," I warn, disliking how she is contradicting Nina.

Calculating arrival time.

"Yes, it does," Nina says, tapping me lighting on the arm in admonishment. "The Guild Ambassador told me about it ages ago. He said there's a planet in deep space where other women just like me are living. The Hov tried to recapture them, he said, but they failed. They couldn't get them, so that's where we're going. To safety."

"The Guild Ambassador just happened to tell you that," Ney's voice is filled with disbelief.

"Yeah." Nina frowns. "You don't believe me?"

I take a step toward Ney. In the small confides of the escape pod, a single step brings me close.

She leans back, there being nowhere for her to escape, and shuts her mouth with a snap, biting back any retort she was about to aim at my Mate.

"There is water aboard, right?" Nina looks at the monitor, which now reads: Estimated arrival eight Common days. "We haven't just condemned ourselves to a slow and painful death?" She glances around the cockpit—at the control panel, at the seats, at the touch screen set into a side wall, at the hatch the floor.

"Akh. What is this?" Vennkor approaches the touch screen and selects an option. A miniature sliding door beside the screen opens, revealing a cup of water, which he hands to Nina. "And for food, we have—" He presses another option, and the door reopens, this time presenting a bowl, the opening to which is covered in a thin see-through film.

"More mush," Nina confirms.

I wrinkle my nose.

"Do not even think about it." Ney pushes one of the hanging chairs between her and me, as if the fabric and ropes create a barrier that would prevent me from reaching her. "I am not your dinner."

"I promise eight days in this tiny pod eating disgusting food is going to be worth it, Reke," Nina says, catching hold of my arm. "You'll see once we land on our new planet. You'll love it there; I know you will." She closes her eyes. "I can practically feel the sunshine on my skin already. God, I've missed sunlight. Real, warm sunlight." She opens one eye. "There aren't any cameras, are there?"

"I cannot see any," Venn confirms, right as Ney says, "Good riddance.".

"Why?" I ask Nina.

"Why are there no cameras, or why do I miss sunshine?"

"Why do you have such strong opinions about something as ordinary as light?"

"Oh, Reke sweetheart, I've got strong opinions about literally everything. And I guarantee you will too, once you've experienced the sun. And grass and fresh air and water that hasn't been recycled through other people." She squeals. "We did it! We fucking did it!" Then she thrusts an arm toward me, spilling a little water from her cup and indicating the tag still around her wrist, the one with her name and home world classification. "Can you break this?"

Feeding off her excitement, I slip a finger between the band and Nina's wrist, making a neat cut through the polyplastic with a sharp claw. The tag flutters to the floor, disintegrating.

"Fuck the Hov!" she yells.

"Fuckwits!" I shout. "Cockheads!"

"Cock heads?" Venn's brow furrows.

"Like a cock on their heads," and I hold my hand to the top of my head, demonstrating. "Nina taught me."

"Of course she did." Ney's scowl deepens as she holds out a tagged arm toward me, not quite meeting my gaze. "And mine."

I think about refusing, but I do not like the idea of even Ney being marked by the Hov, as if they still own her, so I cut the band. As it falls, I see the word SOLD in bold letters printed beside her name. And then it too disintegrates, as though it never existed.